I have mentioned Puppy Love and her field trialing. She’s done pretty ok for a newby but the whole thing was a little confusing to her. She’d never seen a rabbit and the world is full of so many amazing scents. I’d set her down on a rabbit trail and she’d sometimes follow quite well, sometimes she’d get onto some other scent trail and follow that instead.

I bought her a dead frozen farm bunny to train with. Her response was ‘meh’. She could find it but wasn’t sure she wanted too.

Today we met up with some experienced field trailers to do a little training. They are both field trial judges so know the ropes. One of them has a roadkill jackrabbit that she keeps frozen and pulls out for training.

So out we went into a local canyon, lots of open meadow type areas. They dragged some scent lines with the dead jackrabbit, pretty long ones, maybe 100-150 yards. Put Puppy Love down on em and she found that jackrabbit everytime. Worked as well for the most part (sometimes better than!) the other three dachshunds who are all field trial champions. It was really a sight to behold.

The last scent line was laid and the dead jackrabbit was stashed on top of a huge fallen oak tree. Puppy Love got there first on account of starting first and eventually climbed up on top of the giant log. She was all over that dead rabbit, standing on it, trying to roll on it. Lol when the other dogs got there she was barking and growling at them, guarding HER rabbit. So fierce! Which is incredible because she used to be a pretty timid dog. Crittering is really great for her self confidence. She gets to use her brain and nose in a way that completely makes sense to her, and is suitably admired when she gets it right.

So now I’m in the market for a dead jackrabbit of my own. Not a maggoty one, a nice fresh one. Any of you schmoes come upon one, message me. ��